European Journal of Mass Spectrometry
Chemistry
EJMS—European Journal of Mass Spectrometry is a peer reviewed journal covering all areas of mass spectrometry. Whilst “European” in its publishing base, its distribution, editors and authors are truly global.
EJMS - European Journal of Mass Spectrometry, is a peer-reviewed journal, devoted to the publication of innovative research in mass spectrometry. Articles in the journal come from proteomics, metabolomics, petroleomics and other areas developing under the umbrella of the “omic revolution”.
The scope of the journal covers applications of mass spectrometry in biology and medicine, ionisation in gas, liquid and solid phases, chemical reactions of ions in the gas phase, physics of ionic collisions, spectroscopy of ions, design and manufacture of mass spectrometers, applications of computers to mass spectrometry and applications of mass spectrometry to the environment and applications in the pharmaceutical industry.
Topics of interest include experimental and theoretical studies of structures, energetics and reactions of gaseous ions, ion optical theories and ion optics in high vacuum and at higher pressures, ion formation from biological solids, elucidation of interactions and structures of biomolecules in condensed phases, mechanisms of ionic reactions, electrospray ionisation (ESI) and nano-electrospray ionisation, laser –stimulated ionisation and desorption of macromolecules in condensed phases, mass spectrometry of industrial organic and inorganic polymers, formation and reactions of reactions of clusters, reactions of ions at surfaces, multi-photon ionisation and dissociation, ion mobilityand related techniques, time-of-flight (ToF), Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) and theories of ion formation, ion structure and dynamics of ion reactions.
| Prof. Dr Jürgen Grotemeyer | Christian-Albrechts (CAU)-Universität Kiel, Germany |
| Dr Jean Futrell | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory-PNNL, USA |
| Prof. Hans-Friedrich Grützmacher | Universität Bielefeld, Germany |
| Prof. John Holmes | University of Ottawa, Canada |
| Prof. Mamoru Ohashi | Kanagawa University, Japan |
| Prof. Douglas Ridge | University of Delaware, USA |
| Prof. John Todd | University of Kent at Canterbury, UK |
| Dr. Tara Pukala | The University of Adelaide, Australia |
| François Fenaille | CEA Saclay, France |
| Prof. Mary T. Rodgers | Wayne State University, USA |
| Prof. Michisato Toyoda | Osaka University, Japan |
| Prof. Vlaldimir Zaikin | Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis, Russia |
| Jonathan Amster | University of Georgia, USA |
| Alison Ashcroft | University of Leeds, UK |
| Stephen Blanksby | Queensland University of Technology-QUT, Australia |
| Richard Bowen | University of Bradford, UK |
| Leopoldo Ceraulo | Università Degli Studi di Palermo, Italy |
| Dominic Chan | The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong |
| Prof. Huanwen Chen | Jiangxi University, PR China |
| Anastassios Giannakopulos | ThermoFisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Germany |
| Michael Glocker | University of Rostock, Germany |
| Felice Grandinetti | Università degli Studi della Tuscia-Viterbo, Italy |
| Jürgen Gross | Universität Heidelberg, Germany |
| Prof. Dr. Frank Gunzer | The German University in Cairo, Egypt |
| Steen Hammerum | University of Copenhagen-Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Vladimír Havlícek | Institute of Microbiology, v.v.i., Czech Republic |
| Olivier Laprevote | Université Paris Descartes, France |
| Albert Lebedev | Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU), Russia |
| Carlito Lebrilla | University of California (UC)-Davis, USA |
| Eugene Nikolaev | Institute of Energy Problems of Chemical Physics, Russia |
| Richard O'Hair | University of Melbourne, Australia |
| Alexey Sysoev | National Research Nuclear University, Russia |
| Yury Tsybin | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Switzerland |
| Einar Uggerud | Universitetet i Oslo (UiO), Norway |
| Mariappanadar Vairamani | SRM University, India |
| Prof Xiaozhi Wang | Zhejiang University, PR China |
| Chrys Wesdemiotis | University of Akron, USA |
| Renato Zenobi | Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule–ETH Zürich, Switzerland |
This Journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics
Please read the guidelines below then visit the Journal’s submission site https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ems to upload your manuscript. Please note that manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned.
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of European Journal of Mass Spectrometry will be reviewed.
There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.
As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you
- What do we publish?
1.1 Aims & Scope
1.2 Article types
1.3 Writing your paper - Editorial policies
2.1 Peer review policy
2.2 Authorship
2.3 Acknowledgements
2.4 Funding
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
2.6 Research Data - Publishing policies
3.1 Publication ethics
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
3.3 Open access and author archiving - Preparing your manuscript
4.1 Formatting
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
4.3 Supplementary material
4.4 Reference style
4.5 English language editing services - Submitting your manuscript
5.1 ORCID
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
5.3 Permissions - On acceptance and publication
6.1 Sage Production
6.2 Online First publication
6.3 Access to your published article
6.4 Promoting your article - Further information
Before submitting your manuscript to European Journal of Mass Spectrometry, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.
• Original research papers should report the results of the author(s)’s work, in sufficient detail to allow experiments or calculations to be reproduced. This work should have been brought to a stage at which it can be considered to be complete.
• Letters are reports of original research, the conclusions of which must represent a significant advance in understanding of an important issue and carry major implication for mass spectrometry as a discipline. Letters are usually published within three weeks of submission, subject of course to satisfactory review. Letters are typically reviewed by one of the Editors.
• Accounts provide concise reviews of active areas of research. They are normally written by scientists who have strong current interests in the areas. They should be succinct and lucid, they can be polemical and they ought to predict future developments. Accounts are accompanied by a biography and photograph of the author.
• Protocols describe in detail new experimental methods for specific analyses by mass spectrometry most commonly for proteomics, metabolomics and related applications. The article must allow an informed reader to use the analytical protocol in question in their own laboratory.
• New Techniques are typically short articles describing novel or improved ways of performing a particular aspect of an experiment.
The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.
1.3.1 Make your article discoverable
When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry operates a conventional single-anonymize reviewing policy in which the reviewer’s name is always concealed from the submitting author.
As part of the submission process you will be asked to provide the names of two peers who could be called upon to review your manuscript. Recommended reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Please be aware of any conflicts of interest when recommending reviewers. Examples of conflicts of interest include (but are not limited to) the below:
- The reviewer should have no prior knowledge of your submission,
- The reviewer should not have recently collaborated with any of the authors,
- Reviewer nominees from the same institution as any of the authors are not permitted.
Please note that the Editors are not obliged to invite/reject any recommended/opposed reviewers to assess your manuscript.
Papers should only be submitted for consideration once consent is given by all contributing authors. Those submitting papers should carefully check that all those whose work contributed to the paper are acknowledged as contributing authors.
The list of authors should include all those who can legitimately claim authorship. This is all those who:
- Made a substantial contribution to the concept or design of the work; or acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data,
- Drafted the article or revised it critically for important intellectual content,
- Approved the version to be published,
- Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for appropriate portions of the content.
Authors should meet the conditions of all of the points above. When a large, multicentre group has conducted the work, the group should identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals should fully meet the criteria for authorship.
Acquisition of funding, collection of data, or general supervision of the research group alone does not constitute authorship, although all contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in the Acknowledgments section. Please refer to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) authorship guidelines for more information on authorship.
Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.
[FOR SINGLE ANONYMIZE JOURNALS: Any acknowledgements should appear first at the end of your article prior to your Declaration of Conflicting Interests (if applicable), any notes and your References.]
2.3.1 Third party submissions
Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:
- Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
- Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
- Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.
Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.
2.3.2 Writing assistance
Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance. It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading. Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
It is the policy of European Journal of Mass Spectrometry to require a declaration of conflicting interests from all authors enabling a statement to be carried within the paginated pages of all published articles.
Please ensure that a ‘Declaration of Conflicting Interests’ statement is included at the end of your manuscript, after any acknowledgements and prior to the references. If no conflict exists, please state that ‘The Author(s) declare(s) that there is no conflict of interest’. For guidance on conflict of interest statements, please see the ICMJE recommendations here.
The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.
Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:
- share your research data in a relevant public data repository
- include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
- cite this data in your research
Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.
3.1.1 Plagiarism
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.
3.1.2 Prior publication
If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.
3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.
3.3 Open access and author archiving
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.
4. Preparing your manuscript for submission
• Original research papers. An abstract not normally exceeding 350 words should be given. The abstract should describe the scope of the article and should highlight any significant areas. Up to 10 keywords should be provided.
• Letters must be no more than four journal pages in length. Letters have an Abstract, which is a summary designed both to reach readers outside of the specific area of mass spectrometry in question and to convey the main findings of the research, as well as up to 10 Keywords to facilitate indexing. Manuscripts must be submitted online via http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ems and identified as a “Letter” during the submission process. It is essential that either a covering letter is included stating how the contribution meets the requirements for publication as a Letter. The Letter must be suitable for publication with no more than minor amendments. Authors are expected to submit any revised manuscripts within 48 hours of receiving the referees’ reports. Given the accelerated treatment accorded to Letters, it is particularly important that they are written to a standard of English to allow rapid refereeing. If necessary, authors are encouraged to have their manuscript read by a native English speaker before submission or make use of a language editing service (see section 4.6). EJMS considers Online First publication as the primary date of publication, and so three weeks relates to publication online as an Online First paper. The author therefore accepts that the initial publication will be in a form before copy editing and typesetting. This version will be replaced with the copy-edited and typeset version once corrected proofs have been received from the author.
• Accounts are normally less than 10,000 words in length, not including figures. Accounts should contain a summary of normally not more than 500 words. Accounts are accompanied by a biography and photograph of the author.
• Protocols. An Abstract not normally exceeding 350 words should be given, as for Original Research Papers. Up to 5 keywords should be given. Full details of experimental conditions and procedures must be given.
• New Techniques. An Abstract normally of 100 words or less should be given. The new technique must be discussed and evaluated relative to the currently accepted technique. A New Technique should not normally exceed four journal pages.
The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.
4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.
Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.
This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry adheres to the Sage Vancouver reference style. View the Sage Vancouver guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.
If you use EndNote to manage references, you can download the Sage Vancouver EndNote output file.
4.5 English language editing services
Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information.
European Journal of Mass Spectrometry is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ems to login and submit your article online.
IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created. For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.
As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized.
The collection of ORCID iDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID iD you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID iD will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID iD is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.
If you do not already have an ORCID iD please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.
5.2 Information required for completing your submission
You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).
Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.
6. On acceptance and publication
Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.
Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.
6.3 Access to your published article
Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.
Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.
Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the European Journal of Mass Spectrometry editorial office as follows:
Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Grotemeyer, as follows: